Quote: "Comprehension is the goal of reading; it's the reason why people read" (Tompkins, 257)
Comment: This may sound like a "duh" statement, but when I read over it I stopped to think about it for a second. My first thought actually was on the words of Isaiah and how many people have difficulties understanding that passage of scripture. I have heard many comments over the years such as "I just skip the Isaiah parts" or "I just read over it fast without understanding anything." One reason why we don't like reading the Isaiah parts is because we don't comprehend it so we don't see a point in reading it. When we are teachers, some of our students will have a hard time comprehending text which could cause them to turn away from reading. That is why comprehension is so important! You read because you enjoy it, but how can you enjoy it if you don't understand what you are reading?
Question: In what ways can we help in our students' comprehesion skills?
I really like the spiritual connection you made! It definitely shows how large of a gap there can be between reading the words and understanding them. I think the best way to help students' comprehension skills is to teach them strategies for understanding meaning (ie context, using the dictionary for unfamiliar words, is it a compound word, etc) and to keep them on level appropriate texts so they feel successful.
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